Read The Mistress of Tall Acre for Free Online Page B

Cate. Though she’d loved her mother with all her heart, Evelyn Baird Menzies had not been a demonstrative woman. Was the general not a demonstrative man?
    “I hope she’s not slept the whole afternoon.”
    Behind her stood Seamus Ogilvy, obviously having been let in by Glynnis. Sophie looked to the window, the autumn darkness creeping in. Unable to turn round to greet him without waking Lily Cate, Sophie said over her shoulder, “I think all our playing wore her out.”
    “’Tis more than that.” A soldierly stiffness tightened his tone. “She doesn’t sleep much at night for crying.”
    “Crying?”
    “Aye . . . night after night.”
    The complaint in his low words caught at her. “Do you not go to her? Take her in your arms?”
    “I—why would I?”
    “Why?” The question came soft but reproachful nonetheless. “Have your years in the field made you so hard a man you’ve become unmoved by your own daughter, General?”
    “Mayhap.” He came nearer, taking a wing chair. “The truth is she’s afraid of me.”
    “Afraid of you? Why wouldn’t she be?” She darted a glance at Lily Cate, fearing she’d awaken to their intense whispering. “She’s likely never seen a man with a ravaged hand.”
    “She’s my daughter,” he shot back, as if that should resolve everything.
    She took a breath. “You’re a stranger to her, simply a man in uniform who’s been grievously wounded. She’s a wee girl, and you’ve been away even longer. She’s lost her mother. She might have lost you—”
    “But she didn’t.” He leaned forward, legs slightly apart, cocked hat hanging from his peg of an injured hand. “We have five years to make up for, and I can’t begin to get past her fear of me.”
    “Taking her in your arms might help.” She held his gaze, so startled by the pain in his expression she nearly backed down. “Be less the general and more a father. Hold her close at night and chase the shadows away.”
    A muscle convulsed in his jaw. “The only person I want in my arms at night is my wife.”
    The intimate detail set her face aflame. “I understand your loss—”
    “Do you?”
    “I’ve had many losses of my own, if not a husband.” She looked away, finding the worn, floral weave of the carpet all too absorbing. “Though you have no wife, you do have a bewildered daughter who wants to return to Williamsburg or stay here with me. You need to do something.”
    “And that includes taking the advice of an unmarried woman with no children of her own.” Though his tone remained measured, she nearly flinched at the steel behind it.
    “I do speak from experience, General Ogilvy. My father was a military man, if you recall.” She swallowed, on a precarious limb. She never spoke of past hurts, but in Lily Cate’s case . . . “He had little time for a daughter and not much more for a son. I scarcely remember a kiss, a kind word. I beg you to do better—”
    “Pardon me, Miss Menzies. But if I’d wanted a lecture about fatherhood, I would have asked for one.” Bending down, he gathered his sleeping daughter up in his arms, his maimed hand struggling for firm hold of her. Sophie got to her feet, wanting to help but feeling helpless in the face of his temper.
    The happiness of the afternoon shattered. Seamus Ogilvy was regarding her with none of the charm of before. In the span of a few minutes, with a few hasty, misplaced words, she’d become his adversary. And she, inexplicably, wanted to burst into childish tears.
    He went out, striding past a wary Glynnis in the foyer, to the rain-soaked coach at the foot of the steps. Sophie stood in the open parlor doorway, wishing he’d look back. Make amends. Let her make amends. But the coach rattled away, all her hopes with it.
    Glynnis studied her, mouth twisted sorrowfully. “He’s a good man who bears a heavy load, coming home from a long war and trying to make a go of it again.”
    “I was only trying to help.”
    “Help? He’s hardly